


Rebirth

by ValmureEld



Series: Vita est in Sanguinem [4]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Close Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Missing Scene, Regis finds out Geralt isn't dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 18:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValmureEld/pseuds/ValmureEld
Summary: Dettlaff had told Regis about Rivia. By all reliable accounts the White Wolf was dead, so why would Regis believe the new rumors that the duchess has hired Geralt himself to deal with the Beast?Also known as: I like angst and my friend pointed out that at some point Regis would realize that Geralt really did die and yet not in Rivia and it would hit him like a ton of bricks.





	Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand I'm writing more angsty Regis and Geralt. *throws confetti*
> 
> I'll see myself out.

“The dutchess hired in a witcher, did you hear? To deal with the beast.”

Regis raised an eyebrow, wrapping the young woman’s forearm with careful, intentional movements. He was still somewhat shaky from being weak, but he needed the chance to start working again so Dettlaff had begrudgingly allowed him to start treating humans. That was four months ago, and then Dettlaff had secluded himself. Regis saw less and less of him and he was not acting right, but no matter what Regis attempted his friend would not answer him. Dettlaff had been missing for some time now, and the Beast of Beauclair quickly made himself known.

Regis’ stomach clenched at the thought of the witcher’s arrival. He didn’t want to kill anyone, but he knew something was wrong and Dettlaff was in trouble, and he was unwilling to risk Dettlaff’s harm by allowing a vampire hunter to walk freely.

“A witcher?” he asked, tying the bandage off and gently rotating the woman’s wrist to make sure it wasn’t too tight. “Do you know when he’s set to arrive?”

“No, but she sent a knight out special to fetch him and rumor is she’s got the best.”

“The best?” Regis asks, letting her have her arm back and starting to pack his supplies. “And who might that be?”

“Geralt--the white wolf himself.” She sounded almost giddy at the prospect.

Regis paused, glancing at the woman’s face and carefully concealing his surprise. “I see,” he said after a moment, standing and slipping his bag over his head. “Your burn is healing nicely, just continue to care for it as you have and you’ll barely even have scarring.”

If the woman said anything else after that, Regis didn’t hear her. He was trapped in the past, his heart aching as he thought back to the moment he’d started asking questions after his long sleep.

_“And my friends?”_

_“I am sorry, Emiel. There were only corpses in that castle.”_

_“Did you find a witcher, Dettlaff? White hair, perhaps his medallion or his swords…”_

_The other vampire looked sympathetic, but he shook his head and a knot in Regis’ chest dared to loosen a little._

_“No. I found no witcher.”_

For a time, Regis had hoped. He’d held out the faintest flicker that Geralt had survived the nightmare of the battle at the castle.

Then Dettlaff had told him about Rivia, and the grief silenced Regis for an entire week. To his immense surprise and gratitude, the other vampire hadn’t berated him for mourning a human. He’d been gentle, understanding.

Being reminded of Geralt when Dettlaff was now the one in danger was a fresh wound in his aching heart and he walked home slowly.

 _I’ll do it in his sleep. Kill him quickly. Mercifully. No pain, no pleasure in it. Just a broken neck and it will be over_ , he thought. He wouldn’t dare taste this witcher’s blood. He wouldn’t allow him pain. He was an unfortunate result of whatever had driven Dettlaff to extremes, and Regis would do what he had to to protect Dettlaff.

The night came where the rumors of the Witcher’s arrival finally proved true, and Regis had little trouble deducing where he was staying.

It was well past moonrise by the time he settled on the inn roof, solidifying out of smoke and keeping his weight low as he looked around. Seeing and hearing no-one, Regis dissolved once more and spilled over the side of the roof and into the Witcher’s open window.

It took only seconds for his senses to adjust.

What he saw shook him so badly he stumbled back into human shape, catching himself on the cill of the window and clenching so hard the wood began to splinter and mash beneath his claws. He worked his jaw, tried to swallow the painful lump that had formed as suddenly as his shock, and let out a long, unsteady breath.

The hair on the pillow was whiter than milk, and the medallion that had ended up on the mattress next to him was that of a snarling wolf head.

Regis blinked several times, dashing a startled tear away with an impatient, embarrassed hand. This didn’t have to be Geralt. Couldn’t be. Most humans had white hair when they grew older. There were other wolf school witchers left.

He was very bad at lying to himself. The back turned towards him appeared strong and young, the heavy scarring the only badge of years. And the smell. Geralt had a distinct smell of fire, and herbs, and leather burnishing metal.

There was simply no way to deny that the witcher sleeping unaware before him looked and smelled like Geralt. It was the scent memory that had shocked him even more than the sight--the smell yanking him back into memories of a warm night with too much moonshine and the first good company he'd had in years. Regis clenched his teeth together, hardly daring to hope, wanting desperately to know.

That’s when the witcher took a deep breath and sighed, rolling onto his back. Regis didn’t move. Couldn’t move. The white head had turned into a stream of moonlight, and there was no mistaking him. He felt suddenly weak and he gripped the back of the nearby chair to steady himself. He couldn’t look away, studying every feature. Those two scars on his face, the snowy white of the stubble on his jaw, the claw marks across his throat from a fight he never should have won.

 _“A pitchfork,”_ Dettlaff had told him _. “He died when a boy drove a pitchfork into him during the massacre in Rivia. I am, truly sorry, my friend.”_

Regis’ startled breath caught and his brow twisted painfully as he looked at the new scars on Geralt’s chest. Two unmistakable puncture scars invaded his ribcage with a third off to his side in the dark. Dismayed and irresistibly curious at the same time, Regis moved closer on silent feet, closer than he’d intended to, closer than he should have gotten. Any witcher, even in his sleep, was not to be taken lightly.

Geralt slept on, and Regis found himself staring at the puncture resting directly above Geralt’s heart. He reached out reflexively, stopping his hand before he could actually make contact. Geralt took a particularly deep breath, and though Regis’ fingers did not touch skin, he could feel the immense heat Geralt generated anyway.

He was warm. He was breathing.

He was alive even with a punctured heart.

And that _heartbeat_.

Regis closed his eyes, overcome all at once. The heartbeat, above all else, was unmistakable. Should Geralt have been reborn with a different face Regis could have found him again just by his unique sound. It rattled Regis all the way to his spine when he realized that the resonance of it had shifted, ever so slightly, and he had to stop himself from resting his palm on the witcher’s sleeping breast in a mixture of awe and grief. He could _hear_ the scarring deep in Geralt's body. Hear the way his heart had adapted around deadly damage. 

The pitchfork had been real. Rivia had been real. The marks of it were all too real, and Regis knew that Geralt truly had fallen in Rivia, choking on his own blood in defense of the non-humans being massacred there. It was only some miracle beyond Regis’ understanding that had closed up the wound in his noble heart and coaxed it back to beating.

“Oh you stupid, _foolish_ , brave soul,” Regis whispered, shaking his head and looking down at Geralt’s face. He wished he could see the final proof, the light in those amber eyes, but he would wait.

He had to wait, for now his plans were changing. He would not give up on Dettlaff, but the relief he felt that he needn’t bloody his claws was enormous. He hadn’t wanted to kill some poor, naive witcher in his sleep. Now that he knew it truly was Geralt, a sliver of hope took root inside and he could feel it growing. Geralt he could reason with. Geralt, who was a lot of bark but never bit back when he learned of Regis’ own truth, would pause if he asked and consider that Dettlaff didn’t deserve silver.

He wouldn’t allow Dettlaff to harm Geralt either. Geralt had no idea what he was confronting, and Regis resolved to watch over him until the right moment. Things had turned much more complicated, but Regis wouldn’t utter a word of complaint about the work cut out for him.

“I’ll see you soon, my friend,” he said softly, backing away and slowly dissolving to slip back through the window. “I’ll see you very soon.”


End file.
